Thousands of dollars missing from the Huntsville High School cafeteria have triggered a state audit, criminal investigation and possible prosecution. And that school’s recent experiences make a strong argument for school districts across Arkansas to better account for the cash they collect.
I’m talking about nearly $81,000 that legislative auditors estimate somehow evaporated from “a la carte” food sales made to cafeteria students over the past three years. That size of a deficit over three school terms at a district as relatively small and financially strapped as Huntsville is as glaring as a five-carat diamond in a … well, imagine anything really dark.
Clearly this isn’t money that suddenly sprouted legs or wings.
State legislative auditors say it’s clear someone wound up pocketing the missing thousands.
Reporter Brenda Bernet wrote the other day that Superintendent Robert Allen said the money was steadily siphoned from a cash box where it routinely was kept when students paid for “a la carte” items (foods ordered separately from daily cafeteria offerings).
The auditors, naturally, recommended changes in the way the school’s cafeteria money is handled.
Huntsville police are on the case and well familiar with the problem.
When thefts were suspected, they worked with the school last fall to set up surveillance cameras.
According to the audit report, two employees who last worked in February and resigned in March are at the center of the ongoing investigation: the food-service director and a cashier. Charges have yet to be filed in the case.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Billy Allred of the 4th Judicial District prosecutor’s office said the audit and the results of the police investigation will help that office decide how to proceed. If charges are filed, it then will be up to the state to prove how much money is missing and who did it, he said.
Under the school’s old system, two workers routinely collected the cash that students paid for extra food items. Knowing how teenagers are, I suspect that had to include all forms of fats and sugars. Who knows, there might be some grease involved as well.
I’m always stunned when I read about this sort of thing happening in a school, church or some public office. Obviously there are folks who actually believe they won’t get caught once they begin successfully taking money that isn’t theirs. Thievery is one of those criminal activities that seems to reinforce itself with each success. By a third school year of getting away with lots of what had to have seemed like easy money, the culprit or culprits in this case had to have been feeling pretty clever, not to mention flush.
In this instance, officials who examined the daily a la carte receipts said they began noticing how much more on average the program made on days when the two former workers weren’t responsible for the sales. In 2012 alone, the discrepancy ranged from $37 to as much as $283 a day.
Then the school let auditors know of the possible thefts, the camera was installed and the results must have confirmed their suspicions. Soon the auditors more closely examined the daily cash-flow records to better clarify the shortfall.
The audit findings claim the former food-service director failed to deposit $59,484.93 while the former cashier’s total was $21,471.93 over the three years.
I found it remarkable that the school’s a la carte program remained profitable in two of the three years that so much cash turned up missing. That being the case, the a la carte concept sure must have been a prize goose laying a steady stream of golden eggs for the school’s cafeteria.
Meanwhile, state auditors advised Huntsville’s cafeteria to abandon the cash, shoe or cigar box (or whatever container has held all the a la carte cash collected). The superintendent says Huntsville has adopted a computerized Nutrikids program that records all sales, deposits and charges of food served to the students.
A most “nutriwise” idea, in my opinion, whose time arrived at least three years (and some $81,000) ago, before the books apparently were being cooked right alongside Huntsville High’s daily cafeteria offerings.
Bentonville’s new school
Speaking of public schools: The third attempt proved the charm in Bentonville this week after 70 percent of the voters approved a 2.9-mill tax increase to build an $86 million second high school in that booming city.
Back in 2012, with grandiosity apparently running amok, voters rejected a proposed 6.7-mill request to build this badly needed school. Then the proposed football stadium was erased and the millage request dropped by more than half. Finally the people grasped rationality in a way that will benefit the city and its children. The new school at Centerton is projected to have a capacity of 2,250 students, thereby relieving the existing Bentonville High School, which is expected to surpass 5,000 students by 2016.
Just goes to prove yet again that when a need in public education is justified, proven and reasonable, the people most often respond with matching reason.
———◊———
Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial, Pages 17 on 09/21/2013